Independent : Iraqi Kurdish leader defies Turkish invasion threat

Iraqi Kurdish leader defies Turkish invasion threat

By Patrick Cockburn in Iraqi Kurdistan | October 29, 2007

Masoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurds of northern Iraq, expressed defiance yesterday in the face of a threatened invasion by 100,00 Turkish troops, and was scornful of Turkey's claim that it wants only to pursue Turkish-Kurd rebels.

"We are not a threat to Turkey and I do not accept the language of threatening and blackmailing from the government of Turkey," he said from his mountain fortress of Salahudin 10 miles north of Arbil. "If they invade there will be war."

Mr Barzani is President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq which enjoys quasi-independence from Baghdad and has stronger military forces than half of the members of the UN.

He was in no mood to buckle under Turkish pressure to take military action against the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who have their hideouts in the mountain ranges along Iraqi Kurdistan's borders with Iran and Turkey. "My main mission would be not to allow a Kurdish-Kurdish fight to happen within the Kurdish liberation movement," he declared.

Mr Barzani said Turkey's attempt to solve its Kurdish problem by military means alone had not worked in the past 23 years and would not work now. It was in 1984 that the PKK took up arms, seeking independence or autonomy from theTurkish state that refused to admit that it had a Kurdish minority of 15 million.

Mr Barzani also said that he was increasingly convinced that the Turkish objective was not the PKK but Iraqi Kurdistan, which has achieved near-independence since 2003. He said he was convinced Turkey's claim that its target was the PKK "is only an excuse and the target is the Kurdistan region itself". When the KRG put its peshmerga (soldiers) on the border with Turkey to control the areas where the PKK has sought refuge, Turkish artillery had shelled them, he said.

Mr Barzani appears to believe there is no concession he could offer to Turkey which would defuse the crisis because he himself and the KRG are the true target of Ankara.

Turkish military action might be largely symbolic with ground troops not advancing very far, but even this would have a serious impact on the economy of the KRG. The Iraqi Kurds would also be badly hurt if Turkey closed the Habur Bridge, the crossing point near Zakho through which passes much of Kurdistan's trade. Some 825,000 trucks crossed the bridge in both directions last year. Asked what the impact of the closure of Habur Bridge would be on Iraqi Kurdistan, Mr Barzani said determinedly: "We would not starve."

Turkish artillery is already firing shells across the border in the high mountains around Kani Masi, a well-watered border village in western Kurdistan, famous for its apple orchards. The shelling is persistent and is evidently designed as warning to the Iraqi Kurds. "We are afraid but we have nowhere else to go," said Mohammed Mustafa, an elderly farmer.

For the moment, the villagers are staying put. Many of them in this area are Syriac Christians whose parents or grandparents emigrated to Baghdad but had returned recently because of fear of sectarian killing in the capital. Omar Mai, the local head of Mr Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party in Kani Masi, said that seven villages in the area had recently been shelled.

He said that there were no PKK in the villages and that they stayed permanently in the high mountains. Another reason for the PKK guerrillas making themselves scarce in this area is that there are Turkish outposts and garrisons already inside Iraq, set up during previous incursions. At one point near the village of Begova the snouts of Turkish tanks point menacingly down the road.

Driving to the top of a mountain where peshmerga were dug in, Mr Mai explained with some pride the intricate geography of the frontier. On one hilltop below us was the Turkish army, identifiable by the red Turkish flag, while a few hundred yards below the hill, separated by a flimsy fence, were Iraqi Kurdish frontier guards living in a long white barracks. In a grove of trees behind this building was a villa that was also occupied by Turkish troops.

Further north, hidden by folds in the mountains, are the Turkish guns that intermittently bombard this area. If the Turkish army does want to advance here there is not much to stop them, but it is unlikely that they would find any PKK, scanty in number and well-hidden in caves, in this vast range of mountains and valleys.

Independent : Turkey reluctantly prepares for attack on Kurds

Turkey reluctantly prepares for attack on Kurds

It is a war few in the region want to happen, apart from the PKK guerrillas and militant factions in the Turkish army

By Patrick Cockburn on the Iraq-Turkey border | 28 October 2007

The rebels of the Turkish-Kurd PKK movement are the only guerrillas in the world who can be seen from space. Clearly visible to any satellite passing over their headquarters in the Kandil mountains is a giant portrait picked out in painted stones of the PKK's captive leader, Abdullah Ocalan, regarded with cult-like devotion by his followers.

Ignored by the outside world for years, during which they hid in the valleys of Iraqi Kurdistan, the guerrillas looked bemused last week by the number of journalists who had made the trek into the mountains to speak to them. It was a PKK attack early last Sunday morning in which 16 Turkish soldiers were killed and eight captured that led to the Turkish government threatening to invade northern Iraq in pursuit of the Turkish Kurd rebels.

It is not a war anybody wants, apart from the PKK and militant factions within the Turkish army. The PKK was defeated in its battle for independence or at least autonomy for Turkey's 15 million Kurds after a bloody war fought between 1984 and 1999. A Turkish invasion might enable it to regain its political popularity among Turkish Kurds.

The Turkish army, or at least some of its leaders, also has a vested interest in escalating the long-running struggle. This is the army's strongest card in trying to maintain its authority in the state in opposition to the moderate Islamist government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK party was re-elected in July.

There is no doubt that the PKK did carry out last Sunday's attack. But the Iraqi Kurds believe – and it is a view supported by diplomats in Ankara – that at least some of the recent attacks on Turkish security forces were the work of an extreme faction within the Turkish army. The PKK denies, for instance, that it carried out a raid in which 12 village guards – a pro-government home guard – were shot dead in Beytussebap recently. The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, also points out that the PKK is notoriously riddled with Turkish agents.

It is a strange crisis because Mr Erdogan, for all his threats to send 100,000 Turkish soldiers in pursuit of the PKK, is doing everything to avoid an attack. He has pointed out that the 24 previous Turkish invasions of Iraq have achieved little and the 3,000 PKK guerrillas can easily hide in caves and bunkers until the Turks have left. An attack would anger the US, the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan regional government and the Turkish Kurds who voted for Mr Erdogan in July.

The Iraqi government is a weak player in all this because it does not control the north of Iraq, which is firmly under the authority of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Not surprisingly, Turkish-Iraqi talks in Ankara aimed at averting an invasion collapsed on Friday.

Mr Erdogan is off to see President George Bush in Washington in 10 days' time, but the US is disinclined to become embroiled with Turkey through which come much of the military supplies for the US army in Baghdad. The KRG is the only force in Iraq capable of acting against the guerrillas, but Turkey refuses to talk to its leaders, essentially because they are Kurds.

There is also a suspicion among Iraqi Kurds that it is they and not the minnows of the PKK who will be the real target of a Turkish invasion. Turkey has watched with dismay since 2003 as the Iraqi Kurds created what is in effect the first de facto independent Kurdish state that is stronger than half the members of the UN.

A referendum in Kirkuk mandated by the Iraqi constitution should take place by the end of this year, though it may now be delayed, and a vote would probably lead to the oil-rich province joining the KRG. Such a result is anathema to Turkey but it is not clear what it could do to stop it.

For all Mr Erdogan's efforts to talk tough but delay military action, another attack would make it impossible for him to avoid ordering an incursion. There are those in the PKK or the Turkish army who will make sure that just such a provocation does take place.

Independent : PKK tactics may drive Turkey into a reluctant invasion

PKK tactics may drive Turkey into a reluctant invasion

By Patrick Cockburn in the Qandil mountains, northern Iraq | 26 October 2007

Soon after midnight last Sunday, a detachment of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) surrounded a 50-strong unit of the Turkish army near the village of Daglica in Hakkari province, three miles from Turkey's border with Iraq.

The operation was well planned. The PKK guerrillas first cut the electricity and telephone lines to the Turkish army post and then isolated it by blowing up a bridge. The besieged soldiers could see the PKK taking up positions through their night-vision equipment and monitored their radio communications.

When the PKK did attack it overran the outpost, killing at least 16 Turkish soldiers, wounding 17 and capturing eight whom the PKK still holds. The PKK claims only three of its men were slightly wounded and later released pictures of the Turkish prisoners.

It was the most effective PKK action for years and the Turkish government's reaction to it has re-launched the PKK as a political player in the region. It is no longer an irrelevant relic of its failed bid to lead the 15 million Turkish Kurds to independence which collapsed after its military defeat in the 1990s and the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.

Sunday's attack had an explosive impact on Turkey because the Turkish army and its civilian supporters are eager to persuade Turks that the moderate Islamist government is insufficiently patriotic. For his part, the Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan had been skilfully threatening to send the army across the border but not in fact doing so.

Talking to PKK leaders in their headquarters in the Qandil mountains it is not clear how far they are trying to tempt Turkey into a trap by provoking it into invading northern Iraq. A Turkish invasion would be much in the PKK's interests since the Turkish army would become embroiled with the powerful military forces of the Iraqi Kurds.

The PKK leaders do not feel themselves in much danger. The mountains and gorges have been a redoubt for guerrillas for thousands of years. "Nobody can get us out of here," says Bozan Tekin, a PKK leader, pointing to the mountain walls surrounding the cluster of stone houses where we met. He claimed that Alexander the Great had been balked by the mountains of Kurdistan and suggested the Turks would be no more successful.

The natural defences of the Qandil are impressive. We started in the plain below the mountains in the village of Sangassar and then drove along the side of steep hills, dotted with small oak trees, which fall away on one side to form a gorge.

At the top of a pass we entered PKK territory, the entrance to which is guarded by a series of checkpoints and PKK fighters in uniform. They told us to keep straight on to the village of Kurtak and not to divert off the road. Diversions were not tempting since the only side roads are rutted paths leading further into the mountains. Houses are few though nomads herding sheep had pitched their tents by the streams and were gathering firewood.

One of several difficulties facing a Turkish invasion force is that they are unlikely to locate the PKK in this wilderness of mountains. The place we met Bozan Tekin was miles away from the nearest PKK camp which, say local sources, can only be reached after an hour in a vehicle and seven or eight hours trek on foot. The base itself consists of scattered houses hidden in a cleft between the rocks.

But the strength of the PKK position has less to do with geography and more to do with the politics of the region. Since it was founded in 1978 the PKK has always benefited from Ankara's refusal to recognise that there is a Kurdish minority and the stifling of all means of constitutional protest. It still does.

Militarily, the PKK are not very strong. The figure given for its forces inside northern Iraq is about 3,000. They claim that they have been trying to abide by a ceasefire since 1 October 2006, but it is a curiously flexible ceasefire that includes the right of self-defence and retaliation. The PKK's pin-prick attacks do not have much military impact on the 100,000 Turkish soldiers massed north of the border. But they do inflict serious political damage on the Turkish government because any Turkish casualties drive it towards an invasion of Iraq that it does not want to carry out.

There is a further problem for Turkey that is also largely of its own making. The only Iraq force capable of evicting the PKK from its mountains is the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) led by Massoud Barzani. But Turkey refuses to recognise the KRG because it is Kurdish and will only deal with the Iraqi government in Baghdad which, as one observer put it, has "about as much influence in Iraqi Kurdistan as Britney Spears".

In an interview with Aljazeera English television Masrour Barzani, the powerful head of the Kurdish intelligence service (Parastin), says pointedly that if the KRG is not consulted about an agreement between Baghdad and Ankara then it will not necessarily go along with it. In any case, he says the PKK bases are "in remote and isolated areas" outside his government's control.

NYT : Petraeus Says U.S. Seeking Calm in North

Petraeus Says U.S. Seeking Calm in North

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and JAMES GLANZ | October 29, 2007

CAMP SPEICHER, Iraq, Oct. 28 — With tensions on the border between Iraq and Turkey still running high, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American military’s commander in Iraq, indicated Sunday that behind-the-scenes efforts were under way to calm the situation. But he would not talk about them publicly because the situation was volatile.

“I am not going to be saying anything about what we may be doing with our longtime NATO ally Turkey, although we clearly are doing things with them,” General Petraeus said. “Nor am I saying what we’re doing with our longtime Iraqi partners,” he added.

He made the remarks to a handful of reporters after a change-of-command ceremony he attended at Camp Speicher, the military base five miles northwest of Tikrit that is headquarters for American-led forces in northern Iraq.

Turkey and Iraq are at odds because Kurdish guerrillas who have taken refuge in the Qandeel mountains in the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq are using the area as a base for making raids into Turkey. Last week, the guerrillas, part of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., killed at least 12 Turkish soldiers and kidnapped several. That, with previous raids, led Turkey to threaten to invade northern Iraq to rout the guerrillas.

Iraq-Turkey tensions have put the United States in an awkward position because Turkey is an ally and there about 160,000 American troops in Iraq.

General Petraeus also made clear that despite reports describing Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a largely spent force, he viewed it as a continuing threat, though with reduced influence among Sunni Arabs in Baghdad over the past several months. The force is composed largely of Iraqi insurgents and is believed to be foreign-led, according to American intelligence sources, but its ties to Osama bin Laden are unclear at best.

“The presence of Al Qaeda in a number of the key neighborhoods that they were in before — Amariya, Adhamiya, Ghazaliya, Dora — has been significantly reduced and its actions degraded,” General Petraeus said. He added that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia “remained a very lethal enemy of Iraq” and that the military must “keep the pressure on very, very intensely.”

With Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s activity reduced, General Petraeus said, it has been possible to see other problems more clearly, including criminal activities like extortion. He described the criminal influence in some areas of the capital as almost “a mafia-type presence.”

The vulnerability of Sunnis and Shiites who are working to thwart extremism was clear again on Sunday evening when 10 sheiks, three of them Sunni Arabs and the rest Shiites, were kidnapped as they tried to return to Al Salam in eastern Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province.

The sheiks had gone to Baghdad to meet with a representative of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. It was unclear who was responsible for the kidnapping, which occurred in Shaab, a poor, predominantly Shiite neighborhood.

On a separate matter, General Petraeus seemed to distance himself from any effort to save Sultan Hashim, the defense minister under Saddam Hussein, from a death sentence. At the same time, General Petraeus said the three-man Iraqi presidency council “has a very important role.”

The council, made up of President Jalal Talabani and two vice presidents, has yet to ratify the death sentence as required before the execution can be carried out. One result has been to stall Mr. Hashim’s execution. Mr. Talabani opposes the death penalty, but was not a vocal opponent to Mr. Hussein’s execution.

Mr. Hashim is being held in American custody, with the agreement that he will be turned over to the Iraqis when they are ready to hang him. However, the Americans seem to be intent on ensuring that all paperwork be completed. General Petraeus said the Americans would hand Mr. Hashim over when they received the completed paperwork, implying that they had not received it.

Mr. Hashim, who surrendered to General Petraeus in 2003, has been well treated, the general said Sunday. While in American custody, Mr. Hashim was allowed to visit his family and with an imam, General Petraeus said.

Recently, he has become a symbol to Sunni Arabs of the poor treatment of anyone who worked for Mr. Hussein, even those who served the country. The Americans, who are trying to persuade Sunni Arabs to work with them and the Iraqi government to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, want to avoid doing anything that would alienate potential allies.

There has been an outcry in defense of Mr. Hashim primarily from Sunni Arabs, especially those who are former members of the security services. Leading the effort has been Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab who is one of Iraq’s two vice presidents. Mr. Hashimi emphasized that Mr. Hashim had had little choice but to obey Saddam Hussein’s orders and that in all respects Mr. Hashim was viewed as a professional soldier, not a defender of Mr. Hussein’s rule.

Alissa J. Rubin reported from Baghdad, and James Glanz from Camp Speicher. Qais Mizher contributed from Baghdad.

NYT : Turkey Attacks Kurdish Rebel Positions

Turkey Attacks Kurdish Rebel Positions

By SEBNEM ARSU | October 29, 2007

ISTANBUL, Oct. 28 — Turkey’s military on Sunday attacked Kurdish rebels in the southeastern province of Tunceli, a mostly Kurdish area that is a base for the separatist Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or P.K.K.

Special forces troops, supported by helicopter gunships, assaulted the rebel positions, according to the state-run Anatolian News Agency. The area was closed to traffic, causing disruptions along local roads, it said. Local news agencies said at least 15 rebels had been killed, though the military declined to confirm that number.

The mountainous area where the military operation took place is roughly 400 miles from the border with Iraq, where raids by Iraqi-based P.K.K. rebels have killed at least 42 people in the past month and led to increased tensions between Turkey, Iraq and the United States.

While Turkey has so far refrained from beginning a large-scale military incursion into Iraq, operations against the P.K.K. in its southeastern region have been taking place for several weeks, the government has said. On Friday, minor clashes occurred between the army and rebels in Bingol, a town in the southeast. The army said in a statement on Saturday that there were no casualties.

The military operations come before a visit to the United States by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Nov. 5. Many political analysts view his meeting with President Bush as crucial before Turkey decides whether to send forces into Iraq to dismantle the P.K.K. Washington is strongly opposed to any military action by Turkey in northern Iraq.

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters throughout Turkey marched against Kurdish militancy on Sunday, calling for an end to a conflict that has taken more than 30,000 lives since the 1980s.

Government officials have been calling for calm, saying the P.K.K. did not represent the more than 15 million Kurds in the country.

“The 70 million people living in this country are brothers, citizens of this country,” Cemil Cicek, the government spokesman, said Sunday. “We have no separation among us; let’s not give in to provocations.”

NYT : In the Rugged North of Iraq, Kurdish Rebels Flout Turkey

In the Rugged North of Iraq, Kurdish Rebels Flout Turkey

By SABRINA TAVERNISE | October 29, 2007

RANIYA, Iraq, Oct. 27 — A low-slung concrete building off a steep mountain road marks the beginning of rebel territory in this remote corner of northern Iraq. The fighters based here, Kurdish militants fighting Turkey, fly their own flag, and despite urgent international calls to curb them, they operate freely, receiving supplies in beat-up pickup trucks less than 10 miles from a government checkpoint.

“Our condition is good,” said one fighter, putting a heaping spoonful of sugar into his steaming tea. “How about yours?” A giant face of the rebels’ leader — Abdullah Ocalan, now in a Turkish prison — has been painted on a nearby slope.

The rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., is at the center of a crisis between Turkey and Iraq that began when the group’s fighters killed 12 Turkish soldiers on Oct. 21, prompting Turkey, a NATO member, to threaten an invasion.

But the P.K.K. continues to operate casually here, in full view of Iraqi authorities. The P.K.K.’s impunity is rooted in the complex web of relationships and ambitions that began with the American-led invasion of Iraq more than four years ago, and has frustrated others with an interest in resolving the crisis — the Turks, Iraqis and the Bush administration.

The United States responded to the P.K.K. raid by putting intense pressure on Iraq’s Kurdish leaders who control the northern area where the rebels hide, with a senior State Department official delivering a rare rebuke last week over their “lack of action” in curbing the P.K.K.

But even with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scheduled to visit Istanbul this week, Kurdish political leaders seemed in no hurry to act.

An all-out battle is out of the question, they argue, because the rugged terrain makes it impossible to dislodge them.

“Closing the camps means war and fighting,” said Azad Jindyany, a senior Kurdish official in Sulaimaniya, a regional capital. “We don’t have the army to do that. We did it in the past, and we failed.”

But even logistical flows remain uninterrupted, despite the fact that Iraqi Kurdish leaders have some of the most precise and extensive intelligence networks in the country. As the war has worsened, the United States has come to depend increasingly on the Kurds as partners in running Iraq and as overseers of the one part of the country where some of their original aspirations are actually being met.

Iraqi Kurdish officials, for their part, appear to be politely ignoring American calls for action, saying the only serious solution is political, not military. They have taken their own path, allowing the guerrillas to exist on their territory, while at the same time quietly trying to persuade them to stop attacks.

“They have allowed the P.K.K. to be up there,” said Mark Parris, a former American ambassador to Turkey who is now at the Brookings Institution. “That couldn’t have happened without their permitting them to be there. That’s their turf. It’s as simple as that.”

The situation poses a puzzle to the United States, which badly wants to avert a new front in the war, but finds itself forced to choose between two trusted allies — Turkey, a NATO member whose territory is the transit area for most of its air cargo to Iraq, and the Kurds, their closest partners in Iraq.

The United States “is like a man with two wives,” said one Iraqi Kurd in Sulaimaniya. “They quarrel, but he doesn’t want to lose either of them.”

Kurds are one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without a state, numbering more than 25 million, spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

Most live in Turkey, which has curtailed their rights, fearing secession. The P.K.K. wants an autonomous Kurdish area in eastern Turkey, and has repeatedly attacked the Turkish military, and sometimes the civilian population, since the 1980s, in a conflict that has left more than 30,000 dead.

In this small town a short drive from the edge of rebel territory, and in Sulaimaniya, 55 miles to the south, it is business as usual. A political party affiliated with the rebel group is open and holding meetings. Pickup trucks zip in and out of the group’s territory, and a government checkpoint a short drive away from the area acts as a friendly tour guide. Its soldiers said they had waved through eight cars of journalists on one day last week.

Mala Bakhtyar, a senior member in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that governs this northeastern region, said there had been no explicit orders from Baghdad to limit the P.K.K., and scoffed at last week’s statement by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, that Iraq would close the P.K.K.’s offices, saying they had already been shut long ago.

“They are guests, but they are making their living by themselves,” Mr. Bakhtyar said. “We don’t support them.”

He added: “We don’t agree with them. We don’t like to make a fight with Turkey.”

Fayeq Mohamed Goppy, a leader in the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, an offshoot of the P.K.K. that still operates freely, argues that Iraqi Kurdish leaders are only paying lip service to wanting the P.K.K. to leave. In reality, the politicians want the separatists around as protection against Sunni Arab extremists, who most Iraqi Kurds believe will move in if the P.K.K. leaves the mountains.

Noshirwan Mustafa, a prominent Kurdish leader, said the area was as impenetrable as the mountains in Pakistan where leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are thought to be hiding. “For me, the P.K.K. is better than the Taliban,” he said.

Local Kurdish authorities have asked Mr. Goppy to keep a low profile, including canceling a planned conference in Erbil, he said, but otherwise have not limited his activities.

“They really don’t want P.K.K. to go,” he said in an interview in his home in Sulaimaniya. If the group is eliminated, the Iraqi Kurdish area “is a really small piece for eating, very easy to swallow.”

Mr. Parris argues that the Kurdish leader of northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, ever astute, is holding onto the P.K.K. as a future bargaining chip with Turkey, and will not use it until he absolutely has to.

“The single most important piece of negotiating capital may very well be his ability to take care of the P.K.K.,” he said.

Mr. Jindyany said local authorities would be happy to get rid of them if they could, calling the situation a sword of Damocles for Iraqi Kurds.

Throughout its history in northern Iraq, which dates back to the early 1980s, under an agreement with Mr. Barzani, the P.K.K. has had contentious relations with Iraqi Kurdish leaders. It fought in their civil wars, against Mr. Barzani in 1997, and three years later, against Jalal Talabani, a powerful Kurd who is now the president of Iraq.

But since the American invasion in 2003, the political landscape has changed. Iraqi Kurds, emboldened by their secure position, have stopped fighting each other and turned their attentions to other threats like Turkey, a state that has long oppressed its Kurdish population, and Islamic extremism from Baghdad.

This area of northern Iraq, which Iraqis call Kurdistan, in some ways eclipsed the P.K.K.’s struggle for an autonomous Kurdish area, Iraqi Kurds said.

“They were jealous of our autonomy,” said Goran Kader, a Communist Party leader in Sulaimaniya. “They wanted to do the same thing in Turkey.”

At the same time, the P.K.K. was reorganizing, after its leader, Mr. Ocalan, was captured in 1999, and a skilled group of military commanders took over day-to-day operations, said Aliza Marcus, the author of “Blood and Belief: The P.K.K. and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.”

The commanders were intent on military escalation, she said, and stepped up attacks, under Mr. Ocalan’s jailhouse orders, in part to remain relevant.

“They don’t want to be sidelined,” Ms. Marcus said. “That’s really what’s driven them since 2004,” when attacks resumed after a five-year cease-fire. “They want to say, ‘Turkish Kurds are important too — don’t think the Kurdish problem has been solved.’ ”

The ambush of Turkish soldiers on Oct. 21, which took place just a few miles from the Iraqi border, served the purpose perfectly.

Public sympathy in Raniya and Sulaimaniya is enormous, and the fighters procure supplies and health care here with ease. Fighters do not go to hospitals, for fear of standing out — the ones from Turkey speak a different Kurdish dialect — but are treated in doctors’ homes, said one former fighter, an Iraqi Kurd who was recruited at age 14.

“Their organization is everywhere,” said the fighter, who now works as a police officer for the main political party, after surrendering to local authorities in 2003. “Their members are everywhere.”

To Iraqi Kurds, Turkey’s approach is pure politics. There is no military solution to the problem of the P.K.K., they say, because the terrain would never permit victory, and Turkey’s leaders know that.

The solution, Mr. Mustafa argued, lies with moderates in Turkey, who must push for an amnesty for the rebels. Militant Kurds, for their part, should take advantage of the political opening in Turkey — 20 Kurdish deputies are now serving in Parliament there.

“When you have the door to the Parliament open, why are you going to the caves?” he said.

To that aim, talks were held with intermediaries for the P.K.K., Mr. Bakhtyar said. Since then, the rebels have not attacked, and officials and security analysts say that if the quiet holds until Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meets with Ms. Rice on Friday and with President Bush three days later, he might not be pressured into military action.

“Soon there will be snow,” Mr. Kader said. “The roads will be blocked. That will be that until next year.”

Alain Delaquérière contributed reporting from New York.

CNN : Iran: U.S. applies 'double standards' toward terrorists

Iran: U.S. applies 'double standards' toward terrorists

* Iran accuses U.S. of double standard in dealing with terrorism against Turkey
* Turkey is restraining a full-scale military operation amid diplomatic pressure
* Turkish PM maintains his country has the right to attack rebels in Iraq
* Erdogan is expected to meet with Bush at the White House in November

October 28, 2007

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States of applying a double standard in dealing with terrorism by its lack of action against Kurdish rebels who launch attacks against Turkey from northern Iraq.

Ahmadinejad's comment came in a phone conversation with Turkish President Abdullah Gul on the same day Turkey's prime minister said his country would not hesitate to send troops across the Iraq border if needed to pursue the rebels -- formally named the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- who are seeking to carve an independent state out of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

The Turkish government -- which so far has restrained itself from undertaking a full-scale military operation amid diplomatic pressure -- wants Iraq to handle the rebels inside Iraqi territory and has been saying it can't wait indefinitely for Iraq to do so.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Saturday that "whenever an operation is needed to be carried out, we will do that. We do not need to ask anything from anyone for that."

The United States, which believes an offensive will make the unstable region even more volatile, is making attempts to stop such an attack. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in Ankara Thursday for bilateral meetings with Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

No Turkish incursion into northern Iraq is expected until after Erdogan meets with President Bush at the White House on November 5.

President Ahmadinejad also made phone calls to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Saturday night to offer his country's help in mediating the crisis and he met Sunday with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, the Iranian foreign ministry said.

Ahmadinejad, in his call with Gul, took a swipe at the United States' occupation in Iraq, suggesting it was the root cause of Turkey's problems with the rebels.

"Occupiers have prepared ground for disunity and are supporting terrorists with their double standards," a Iranian Foreign Ministry statement quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, after meeting with Babacan Sunday, said he suspected the United States had "behind the scenes agreements" that made them reluctant to restrain the PKK rebels.

"Nevertheless, I am hoping the United States will mend their ways and help with terrorism in the region," Mottaki said.

Mottaki said that Ahmadinejad, in his call to the Iraqi leaders, "expressed his concern about terrorist actions taking shape in the region and stressed the need to find solutions."

Dawn : Explosion hits anti-PKK rally in Turkey

Explosion hits anti-PKK rally in Turkey

Reuters | October 28, 2007

ISTANBUL -- An explosion hit a demonstration against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the Turkish city of Izmit on Sunday, slightly injuring three people, state news agency Anatolian reported.

NYT : U.S. and Turkey Thwart Armenian Genocide Bill

U.S. and Turkey Thwart Armenian Genocide Bill

By CARL HULSE | October 26, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 — With backing from more than half of the House this summer, proponents of a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide were confident that they would finally prevail in their quest for Congressional recognition.

Adding to their optimism, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a longtime backer of the resolution, which had been pushed mainly by her fellow Californians, and was committed to bringing it to a House vote.

But supporters of the measure were not prepared for the vehement opposition of two powerful governments — Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, which historians say conducted the genocide, and the United States, which needs Turkey’s help in Iraq. Their combined resistance caused the resolution to falter, embarrassing the speaker on a high-profile foreign policy front.

On Thursday, supporters surrendered, at least for now, telling Ms. Pelosi they were willing to wait until next year. “We believe that a large majority of our colleagues want to support a resolution recognizing the genocide on the House floor and that they will do so, provided the timing is more favorable,” the four chief sponsors said in a letter to Ms. Pelosi.

The faltering of the push to denounce the genocide illustrates what can happen when domestic politics collide with international affairs and how treacherous that can be for Congressional leaders like Ms. Pelosi, who came under criticism this year for a trip to Syria. It also turned a near triumph into a disappointment for those who believe Congress has a responsibility to send a message on past inhumanities to prevent future ones.

“We certainly thought it would be a very tough fight, but it was a much more lopsided one than we expected,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat and a main sponsor of the bill. Once Democrats gained control of Congress in January, supporters of the measure mobilized, seeing a way clear to the final vote that had eluded them because of opposition first from the Clinton administration and then from the Bush White House.

Ms. Pelosi as well as Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the new majority leader, were dedicated proponents of the resolution that would put the House on record as defining the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as genocide. The crisis in Darfur, in Sudan, had raised public consciousness about genocide as well.

“This issue had a constituency, and there was a lot of momentum due to the switch in leadership and Darfur,” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.

It did not hurt that Armenians are an influential bloc in California, Ms. Pelosi’s home, and that the resolution was a top priority of California House members of both parties, including Mr. Schiff and two other Democrats, Brad Sherman and Anna G. Eshoo. Ms. Eshoo is a lawmaker of Armenian heritage who is a close friend of Ms. Pelosi’s.

Mr. Sherman said the speaker’s decision to pledge a vote by the full House was not about personal relationships but about principle. “You don’t have to have a special relationship with this speaker to get her to be in favor of recognizing genocide,” he said.

While the backers of the resolution pressed ahead, the Turkish government also went to work, hiring a lobbying team to raise concerns about the potential backlash in Turkey if the resolution was approved, particularly when Turkey is a staging ground for the Iraq war.

The Turkish government has resisted the characterization of a genocide, seeing the deaths as among the many tragic losses in a time of brutal conflict. But most of the lobbying against the resolution centered on the need not to antagonize Turkey at a time when it was of crucial strategic value.

Among those carrying that message was Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and a close ally of Ms. Pelosi’s, who began warning her in February against the bill.

“I explained what the ramifications were from a military standpoint, but she said she felt compelled to do it,” said Mr. Murtha, who welcomed Thursday’s decision. By midsummer, the advocates had 225 sponsors, more than the minimum of 218 needed to assure passage. But they refrained from pushing for a vote because Turkey was having its own national elections. Instead, they aimed for the fall.

Encouraged to consider the bill, the Foreign Affairs Committee approved it on Oct. 10, but by a relatively narrow 27-to-21 vote, because lawmakers were well aware that the measure could reach the floor this year.

Mr. Bush and the Turkish government intensified their opposition and within days, co-sponsors of both parties began abandoning the resolution.

Ms. Pelosi said it was the responsibility of its backers to secure the needed votes. “This is the legislative process,” she told reporters last week when asked about the furor. Its backers began reassessing their strategy and one result was the letter to the speaker on Thursday.

Even some of Ms. Pelosi’s allies said the bill’s withdrawal, while an embarrassment, may well have averted a larger problem for her had the proposal been approved, setting off problems with Turkey. Advocates of the bill predicted that Congress would eventually regret backing off in the face of a threatened backlash from an ally. “This sets a terrible example,” Mr. Hamparian said.

Dawn : Turkey rejects PKK ceasefire offer

Turkey rejects PKK ceasefire offer

BAGHDAD, Oct 23 (AFP): Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on Tuesday rejected a conditional ceasefire offer from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), saying Ankara does not deal with a “terror” group.

“The issue of ceasefire is an issue between two countries and two armies and not with a terror organisation. The issue is of terrorism,” Babacan told a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari.

WaPo : Turkey Authorizes Combat in Iraq

Turkey Authorizes Combat in Iraq

Parliament Says Troops Can Invade to Attack Kurdish Rebels

By Molly Moore | Washington Post Foreign Service | October 18, 2007

ANKARA, Turkey, Oct. 17 -- The Turkish parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly authorized cross-border military attacks in northern Iraq against Kurdish separatist rebels, as world leaders pleaded for restraint.

Lawmakers voted 507 to 19 to give Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan permission to order strategic strikes or large-scale invasions of Iraq for a one-year period. Erdogan has said he will not order an immediate attack.

Throughout 2 1/2 hours of debate, legislators expressed frustration that the United States and Iraq have not kept promises to curb the activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK, which the United States and European Union have classified as a terrorist organization.

As the votes were tallied in Turkey's modernistic legislative chamber here, President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference that "we are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interest to send troops into Iraq."

In the hours leading up to the vote, Turkish leaders were besieged with last-minute telephone calls from across the globe, imploring against military action on grounds that it could inflame the only relatively stable region of war-ravaged Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki telephoned Erdogan, asking for more time to take action against PKK rebels who have largely been allowed to operate freely in northern Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He said he has given "strict instructions" to the regional Kurdish administration in Iraq's north to crack down on PKK operations and said Iraqi forces could join the Turkish army in military operations "if necessary," according to the Anatolian news agency. Erdogan's office denied there was an offer of joint military action.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer phoned Turkish President Abdullah Gul and urged Turkey to "exercise the greatest possible restraint, particularly in this time of great tension," James Appathurai, a spokesman for the alliance, said at a briefing in Brussels. Turkey has the second-largest military in NATO.

Gul rebuffed Scheffer, according to Turkish accounts, echoing the comments of many lawmakers during Wednesday's legislative debate in saying, "Terrorism cannot be presented as excusable in any way and Turkey will obviously take any measure to stop these heinous attacks," Turkish news agencies reported.

Only the small, pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party opposed the parliamentary resolution, arguing that military action would worsen the economic plight of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.

Turkish lawmakers on Wednesday accused the United States and the northern Iraq Kurdish government of giving PKK leaders and fighters free rein to run their headquarters and training camps and plot attacks on Turkey, despite a 2003 agreement to assist in curbing rebel operations inside Iraq.

"They are furious and they wish to see somebody get a hold of the PKK," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. "Ideally it would be the Kurdish government, and that's who we are pressuring to deal with the terrorists in their midst."

In Kurdish Iraq, people expressed anger over the Turkish moves. Faisal Muhammad Abbas, 28, a university student, said that Turkey wants to bring "disaster" to his part of the country. "They think if Kurdistan will continue improving in Iraq this will be a motive for the Kurds in Turkey to call for the same thing and fight for it." Some Kurds say they have already fled their homes because of Turkish shelling.

A U.S. general and Turkish general assigned to oversee U.S.-Iraqi efforts against the PKK left their jobs this year, frustrated that neither Americans nor Iraqis placed any priority on the problem, according to U.S. and Turkish officials.

Turkish officials said Wednesday that Iraqi efforts to shut down PKK operations and financial accounts and turn over leaders to Turkey could help avert military action.

Turkey has had limited numbers of troops in northern Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Morrell said there are now two or three battalions that function mainly as observers. "They are pretty much confined to their bases," he said. "Their movements are limited and must be coordinated with us."

Although the Turkish government now has the authority to strike, some Turkish officials and military experts warned that the military would face serious obstacles in all types of cross-border action, including many of the same problems the U.S. military has experienced in Iraq.

Turkish troops have conducted 24 cross-border attacks in northern Iraq since the conflict with PKK rebels began 23 years ago, according to Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek. That included several operations with tens of thousands of soldiers and heavy aerial bombardments.

The military never routed PKK rebels from northern Iraq. Now the task will be harder because the PKK has been embraced by the local Kurdish population and its authorities, officials and analysts said.

Retired Maj. Gen. Armagan Kuloglu said the military's first choice of missions is likely to be repeated "short-time operations," using attack helicopters or other aircraft to attack PKK cells.

He cautioned that those kinds of attacks require extremely precise, difficult-to-obtain intelligence. He said bombing operations and targeted attacks are also treacherous because PKK members blend easily into the civilian population.

Another option is a large-scale military invasion to establish a buffer between PKK strongholds in Iraq and the Turkish border and to attempt to root out guerrillas. But similar attacks in the 1990s failed.

"The worst-case scenario is to create a buffer zone and stay there," said Mehmet Ali Birand, a political commentator with close ties to the military. "They know they will be hampered there not by the PKK, but the pesh mergas," the local Kurdish militia forces that assisted the United States in the north during the invasion of Iraq.

"It will be easy to get in, but very difficult to get out," Birand said.

"We've been hearing from the military commanders this will not mean the end of the PKK," said Sami Kohen, a columnist for the daily Turkish newspaper Milliyet. "What they say is they need to be there. They need to get into their hideouts . . . there is no other way."

Kohen dismissed calls for restraint by international leaders. "There is a very widespread and strong feeling that the U.S. and the West in general are applying double standards," he said. "They find it justified for themselves, but when it comes to Turkey in a cross-border action that should be considered legitimate self-defense, they want to deny this right to the Turks. It comes to a point where you lose patience."

PKK rebels have escalated attacks inside Turkey in the last two weeks, killing 31 people including 13 military commandos and a busload of civilians. The Turkish public was enraged by these deadliest attacks in over a decade, increasing pressure for cross-border action.

"Today the Turkish government is in a most critical and most difficult position," said commentator Birand. "If they do something, they will get burned from the American side. If they don't do anything, they'll get burned by public opinion."

Turkish anger over the U.S. failure to act against the PKK was compounded by a U.S. House committee vote last week to declare as genocide the deaths and disappearances of 1.5 million Armenians during the final days of the Turkish Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago. The White House has urged congressional leaders to put the measure on hold, and it has not gone to a floor vote.

U.S. and Iraqi officials fear a Turkish invasion of Iraq could encourage neighboring countries -- including Iran and Syria, which both have Kurdish minorities supporting autonomy -- to launch attacks against other rebel groups across their borders. Both Iran and Turkey have been firing artillery shells into northern Iraq for the past several weeks.

Turkey, Syria and Iran share concerns that Kurdish groups in the region could make a push for an independent Kurdish state, carving chunks out of each of their countries. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was visiting Ankara on Wednesday, was the only international leader to openly support Turkey's right to stage a cross-border offensive.

"We understand that such an operation would be aimed toward a certain group which attacks Turkish soldiers," Assad said. "We support decisions that Turkey has on its agenda -- we are backing them."

Staff writers Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson in Washington and special correspondent Dlovan Brwari in Dahuk, Iraq, contributed to this report.

The Independent : Ankara incursion threatens only part of Iraq still at peace

Ankara incursion threatens only part of Iraq still at peace

By Patrick Cockburn | October 12, 2007

Turkey is threatening to send its troops into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas in a move likely to destabilise the one part of Iraq which is at peace.

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will ask parliament next week to authorise a military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan after attacks by Turkish Kurds killed more than 10 Turkish troops last Sunday. Threatening a push into Iraq would also underline Turkish anger at the US Congressional vote describing the Ottoman Turk killing of Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

A statement from Mr Erdogan's office said: "The order has been given for every kind of measure to be taken [against the PKK] including, if needed, by a cross-border operation."

An attack into Iraqi Kurdistan by Turkey would be deeply embarrassing for the US because the five million Iraqi Kurds are the only Iraqi community which fully supports the US occupation of Iraq. US reliance on Kurdish military units was emphasised yesterday by a report that Peshmerga 34th Division is to move outside the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) area to guard roads between Kurdistan and Baghdad.

The Turkish government was recently re-elected with an increased majority but may wish to burnish its patriotic credentials by authorising the army to enter Iraq. There is continual tension between the ruling AK moderate Islamic party and the secular military establishment. A military assault would be unlikely to achieve anything practical against the PKK guerrillas who have camps and hide-outs in the rugged mountains of Qandil along Iraq's borders with Turkey and Iran.

Given the rebels' knowledge of the terrain and the lack of roads, the PKK could disappear very easily. The Turks would probably use helicopter-born troops to try to surprise them.

The Iraqi Kurds believe they may be the real target of any Turkish intervention since it would destabilise their enclave. Some Turkish Kurdish businesses, which had won many contracts in Kurdistan, are returning to Turkey. Hopes that the Kurdish economy could take off regardless of the anarchy in the rest of Iraq have been blighted by high inflation and lack of confidence in local banks.

The impact on the region of a Turkish attack, if it takes place, will depend on the extent of the intervention. If it is confined to the mountains on the frontier, where there are only a few villages, then the KRG would be unlikely to respond. Turkish incursions by 35,000 to 50,000 troops in 1995 and 1997 failed to achieve anything. But if Turkish forces advance into important towns and cities then Kurdish troops would be bound to respond. The KRG will also want to prevent a precedent being established whereby the Turkish army can cross the Turkish-Iraq frontier at will.

Turkey has been alarmed to see the development of an effectively independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq and an Iraqi government in Baghdad in which the Kurds play a leading role. It is particularly anxious about the referendum which might lead to the oil province of Kirkuk joining the KRG under a poll which was promised under the constitution for the end of 2007 but may now be delayed.

CBC : U.S. House panel defies Bush, approves Armenian genocide resolution

U.S. House panel defies Bush, approves Armenian genocide resolution

CBC News | October 10, 2007

A U.S. House committee on Wednesday defied President George W. Bush by passing a resolution calling the 1915 massacre of Armenians genocide, a step the White House warns could damage U.S. goals in the Middle East.

The measure, passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a 27-21 margin, will be sent to the House floor, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote within weeks.

Turkey, a key NATO ally that has supported U.S. efforts in Iraq, has strongly opposed the measure and warned it could damage relations between the two countries.

At issue is the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of First World War. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated and insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest. It has threatened sanctions against countries that use the term genocide.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul called the measure's passage "unacceptable," said Reuters.

"Unfortunately some politicians in the United States of America have closed their ears to calls to be reasonable and once again sought to sacrifice big problems for small domestic political games," state news agency Anatolian quoted Gul as saying.
Continue Article

Canada recognized the Armenian genocide in 2004, passing a parliamentary resolution denouncing the 1915 incident as a "crime against humanity."
Bush, Rice concerned

Bush made a last-minute push to persuade lawmakers to reject the measure.

"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," Bush said hours before the vote.

Earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates conveyed their concerns.

Passing the measure "at this time would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice told reporters at the White House.

Turkey raised the possibility of impeding logistical and other U.S. military traffic now using Turkish airspace.

The vote comes at a time of tension in the region. Turkey's government is seeking parliamentary approval for a military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The move, opposed by the U.S., could open a new front in the most stable part of Iraq.

Gates said 70 per cent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.

"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95 per cent of new vehicles designed to better protect passengers against mine attacks are being flown through Turkey to get to Iraq.

Lawmakers from both parties who supported the proposal said the moral implications outweighed security concerns and friendship with Turkey.

With files from the Associated Press

WSJ : Turkey Bombs Positions Of Suspected Kurdish Rebels

Turkey Bombs Positions Of Suspected Kurdish Rebels

Associated Press | October 10, 2007

SIRNAK, Turkey -- Turkish warplanes bombed positions of suspected Kurdish rebels Wednesday, and the prime minister said preparations for parliamentary approval of a military mission against separatist fighters in Iraq were under way.

Turkish troops blocked rebel escape routes into Iraq while F-16 and F-14 warplanes and Cobra helicopters dropped bombs on possible hideouts, the Dogan news agency reported. The military had dispatched tanks to the region to support the operation against the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in response to more than a week of deadly attacks in southeastern Turkey.

Turkish authorities also detained 20 suspected Kurdish rebels at a border crossing with Iraq, the office for the governor of Sirnak said in a statement.

The military activity followed attacks by PKK rebels that has killed 15 soldiers since Sunday and prompted Turkey's government to push for a possible cross-border offensive against separatist bases in Iraq. Turkish Kurd rebels have been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that preparations for a parliamentary authorization for a cross-border mission were under way, but didn't say when the motion would reach the floor. A member of the governing Justice and Development Party said a request for parliamentary approval for a cross-border ground offensive was unlikely to come to the floor before the end of a four-day religious holiday on Sunday.

On Wednesday, an opposition nationalist party that has long been advocating an incursion into Iraq called on the government to swiftly take the motion to parliament and said it would back it.

If Parliament approves, the military could choose to immediately launch an operation or wait to see if the United States and its allies, jolted by the Turkish action, decide to crack down on the rebels.

A cross-border operation could hurt Turkey's relationship with the U.S., which opposes Turkish intervention in northern Iraq, a region that has escaped the violence afflicting much of the rest of the country. Turkey and the U.S. are NATO allies, but ties have also been tense over a congressional bill that would label the mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of World War I as genocide. President Bush has strongly urged Congress to reject the bill, saying it would do "great harm" to U.S.-Turkish relations.

Turkish troops targeting the guerrillas suspected escape routes in mountainous areas in Sirnak province have "squeezed" a group of about 80 rebels on Mount Gabar, in Sirnak, the Hurriyet newspaper reported. Escape routes were being bombed by helicopter gunships while transport helicopters were airlifting special commando units to strategic points.

Turkish troops were also shelling suspected PKK camps in the regions of Kanimasa, Nazdur and Sinath, in northern Iraq, from positions in Turkey's Hakkari province, just across the border, Hurriyet reported. Tanks were positioned near the town of Silopi, in Sirnak province, the paper said.

The paper said the government would impose an information blackout on its preparations for a possible cross-border offensive.

Copyright © 2007 Associated Press

Turkish Weekly : Turkish-US military deals threatened by Armenian Bill

Turkish-US military deals threatened by Armenian Bill

October 9, 2007

Any possible Turkish retaliation to an Armenian "genocide" resolution that the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs is expected to approve tomorrow is said to be likely to expand to include lucrative arms procurement deals between Turkey and the US.

Turkey has long rejected the genocide tag for the World War I deaths of Anatolian Armenians. But this has not prevented over 20 nations from recognizing the events as genocide, and now the Committee on Foreign Affairs is highly likely to adopt the resolution during its scheduled meeting tomorrow.

If the resolution is approved by the committee, it would be up to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to decide whether to bring it to the House floor for a vote. Despite intense efforts launched by both the Turkish government and the US administration, Pelosi is said to intend to bring it before the House.

But the passage of the “genocide resolution” by the House alone (though it is not legally binding for the administration) is likely to have a serious negative impact on the Turkish public and to further affect the already damaged Turkey-US relations.

The most vulnerable areas in terms of possible Turkish retaliation are said to be limiting usage of the Habur border gate with Iraq for US goods, including oil and military spare parts, as well as limiting or even closing the İncirlik airbase in southern Turkey to US access. İncirlik has been heavily used by the US for its operations both in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Any Turkish action to limit or close both Habur and İncirlik to US use will jeopardize US combat operations in Iraq, said an Ankara-based Western diplomat.

Arms deals to be affected

Another significant region of cooperation between Turkey and the US said to be at risk from the genocide resolution is arms procurement. Turkey was one of the leading countries in 2006 for US arms sales, totaling an estimated $2.1 billion.

Those US sales to Turkey have mostly taken place in the form of foreign military sales credits that did not involve any international tender being opened by Ankara. Turkey signed an arms deal based on foreign military sales with the US worth over $13 billion last year that involved Turkish purchase of an additional 30 F 16 fighters and Turkish participation in the US-led Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project.

Turkey’s Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry (SSM) has in the meantime eased contract terms and conditions for the purchase of arms through international tenders -- conditions that were mainly affecting US companies due to the Turkish request for the transfer of high technology which ran contrary to US legal restrictions.

This relatively flexible Turkish policy has opened the way for US companies to re-enter the competition for Turkish arms procurement tenders. A decision to take the genocide resolution to the US House may prompt the SSM to harden contract terms and conditions for the US companies.

For example, US firm Sikorsky, which came close to negotiations with SSM for the sale of around 70 S-70 Black Hawk helicopters to Turkey may lose this tender as a result of a possible Turkish retaliation to the resolution, said a senior Turkish defense industry source.

Turkey had been planning to make a final decision on the acquisition of multipurpose helicopters some time in November, the month that US House may vote on the genocide resolution.

Similarly, the chance of US companies succeeding in Turkey’s $1.4 billion acquisition of four long-range air and missile defense systems may decrease, and Turkey may instead opt for the Russian S-400 missiles that Moscow is said to be planning to offer in response to the Turkish tender.

If the fact that almost half of the Turkish Air Forces generals are in favor of the Russian missiles is taken into consideration, the adoption of the genocide resolution will further weight this bid in favor of the Russians, said the same senior Turkish defense industry sources.

US Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are bidding in Turkey’s long-range missile project with a combination of Patriot 2 and Patriot 3 missiles under foreign military sales conditions.

PKK attack may heighten Turkish emotions

Many Ankara-based Western diplomats fear that the latest Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attack over the past weekend in Şırnak in the Southeast, which killed 13 Turkish soldiers, just three days before the expected deliberations on the genocide resolution in the Committee on Foreign Affairs will heighten Turkish emotions.

Since the attack Turkey’s possible cross-border operation in northern Iraq to crack down on PKK terrorists has come to the agenda again. Turkey has long been accusing the US of not taking action against PKK bases in northern Iraq, from which terrorists have been infiltrating into Turkey to stage their violent attacks.

US inaction against the PKK in northern Iraq coupled with a potential genocide resolution may make Turkey turn more emotional and lead it to take tougher retaliatory measures against the US, said a Western diplomat.

WaPo : White House And Turkey Fight Bill On Armenia

White House And Turkey Fight Bill On Armenia

Genocide Label for WWI-Era Killings Has House Support

By Glenn Kessler | Washington Post Staff Writer | October 10, 2007

A proposed House resolution that would label as "genocide" the deaths of Armenians more than 90 years ago during the Ottoman Empire has won the support of a majority of House members, unleashing a lobbying blitz by the Bush administration and other opponents who say it would greatly harm relations with Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq war.

All eight living former secretaries of state have signed a joint letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning that the nonbinding resolution "would endanger our national security interests." Three former defense secretaries, in their own letter, said Turkey probably would cut off U.S. access to a critical air base. The government of Turkey is spending more than $300,000 a month on communications specialists and high-powered lobbyists, including former congressman Bob Livingston, to defeat the initiative.

Pelosi, whose congressional district has a large Armenian population, has brushed aside such concerns and said she supports bringing the resolution, for the first time, to a full vote in the House, where more than half of the members have signed on as co-sponsors. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has passed such a resolution before, is set to vote on it today.

House Resolution 106, officially the Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide, has been pushed doggedly by a congressman whose Southern California district contains the largest concentration of Armenian Americans in the country. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D) won his seat in 2000 after his Republican predecessor was sandbagged when then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert reneged on a pledge and pulled the bill from the floor after a last-minute plea from President Bill Clinton.

Schiff, who defeated Rep. James Rogan after Hastert killed the floor vote, said the deaths so long ago still resonate with Armenians. "It is an insight you get when you have lots of Armenian constituents," he said, saying it reminded him of conversations he had while growing up Jewish. "But imagine losing the entire family and having the successor state say it never happened."

Few people deny that massacres killed hundreds of thousands of Armenian men, women and children during and immediately after World War I.

But Turkish officials and some historians say that the deaths resulted from forced relocations and widespread fighting when the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire collapsed, not from a campaign of genocide -- and that hundreds of thousands of Turks also died in the same region during that time.

"This is the greatest accusation of all against humanity," said Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy, referring to genocide. "You cannot expect any nation to accept that kind of labeling." He said the reaction in the Turkish parliament would be one of fury, noting that the Turkish military cut contacts with the French military and terminated defense contracts under negotiation after the French National Assembly voted in 2006 to criminalize the denial of Armenian genocide.

Pelosi had long been a co-sponsor of the resolution. The Armenian National Committee, one of the many Armenian organizations that have sought passage of the measure for years, has given her an "A" grade for her stance on Armenian issues.

Now as speaker, Pelosi will face a choice between her role as a national leader and her previous campaign pledges as a member of Congress. U.S.-Turkish relations are already under some strain because Kurdish militant groups have attacked Turkish targets from bases in Iraq, with Ankara suggesting it may launch its own attack. Turkey plans to hold a "neighbors" conference on Iraq pushed by the United States later this month, but a recent poll by the nonpartisan group Terror Free Tomorrow found that 83 percent of Turks would oppose assisting the United States on Iraq if the Armenia resolution passed.

It is a problem that has caused other politicians to flinch. As a presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush pledged to ensure that "our nation properly recognizes" what he called "a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension." But, angering Armenian groups, Bush refused to use the term in the annual presidential statement on the subject made on April 24, generally considered the beginning of the killings in 1915. President George H.W. Bush and Clinton also refused to refer to genocide in their annual statements, for fear of offending Turkey.

Among other things, the resolution calls on the president to use his annual message to "accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide."

In the Senate, where one-third of its members are co-sponsoring the resolution, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) supports the measure, as do the two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.).

The State Department, which collected the signatures of the former secretaries of state, has lobbied against the resolution, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried and U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson calling lawmakers yesterday to "urge them not to vote for this," according to an interview Fried gave the Anatolia news agency.

The Turkish Embassy is paying $100,000 a month to lobbying firm DLA Piper and $105,000 a month to the Livingston Group, and it recently added communications specialists Fleishman-Hillard for nearly $114,000 a month, according to records filed with the Justice Department. Turkish lawmakers were on Capitol Hill yesterday, warning that passage would put military cooperation with Turkey at risk.

Meanwhile, leading the charge for the resolution are grass-roots groups such as the Armenian Assembly of America, with 10,000 members, a budget of $3.6 million last year and phone banks that are running on overtime calling members of Congress. The organization has signed up 53 non-Armenian ethnic groups, including a number of Jewish groups, to support the resolution.

Some Jewish groups have found themselves in a bind because Turkey is one of the few Muslim nations to have diplomatic relations with Israel.

IHT : Bush urges Congress to reject Armenian genocide resolution

Bush urges Congress to reject Armenian genocide resolution

By Brian Knowlton | October 10, 2007

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush and two top cabinet members urged lawmakers on Wednesday to reject a resolution describing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide - a highly sensitive issue at a time of rising U.S.-Turkish tensions over northern Iraq.

"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915," Bush said in a brief statement from the White House. "But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror."

He spoke hours before the House Foreign Affairs Committee was to vote on the resolution. The House speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, is said to be prepared to forward the matter to the full House, where more than half the 435 members are co-sponsors.

Passage would be symbolic - but the symbolism, the administration asserts, could seriously jeopardize the delicate relationship with Turkey.

Turkey has been a vital way-station for fuel and materiel shipments to U.S. forces in Iraq, and the administration has spared little effort to lobby against the resolution. The State Department secured the signatures of the eight living former secretaries of state on a letter opposing the resolution. And both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been speaking out against it for months.

Earlier, the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, wrote to Bush to thank him for his efforts opposing the resolution and to draw "attention to the problems it would create in bilateral relations if it is accepted," according to a statement from Gul's office.

Adding to the tensions are the recent Turkish preparations for a possible invasion of northern Iraq in an effort to stop lethal incursions by armed Kurdish militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

The United States strongly opposes such Turkish action, fearing troubles in what has been the most stable part of Iraq. But the Turkish government is under heavy public pressure to act, and officials in Ankara have warned that passage of the genocide resolution would make it harder for the government to resist such pressure.

Turkey has acknowledged Armenian deaths over a period of several years beginning in 1915, as the Ottoman Republic was falling apart, but it vehemently rejects any effort to classify them as genocide. It says that many Turks also were killed at the time.

Turkey has shown its willingness to react sharply to criticism on the Armenian issue. When the French legislature called for criminal charges against those who deny that a genocide occurred, the Turkish military cut contacts with the French military and canceled some defense contracts under negotiation.

When the resolution seemed likely to reach a vote last spring, Rice and Gates joined in a strongly worded letter to Pelosi warning against passage. They repeated their arguments Wednesday.

"The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice said.

The bulk of U.S. air cargo and about one-third of the fuel headed for Iraq passes through Turkey, Gates said, including nearly all the newly purchased mine-resistant vehicles.

"Access to air fields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we believe they will," Gates said.

The debate has left the administration in a difficult position, and officials have gone out of their way to emphasize that they are not defending what happened. "The president recognizes annually the horrendous suffering that ethnic Armenians endured during the final years of the Ottoman Empire," Rice and Gates wrote in their March 7 letter.

Armenian-American groups have been rallying support for the resolution. The Armenian National Committee of America e-mailed members Wednesday to urge them to watch the Foreign Affairs Committee session on-line and phone the offices of any "traditionally friendly member of the committee" who is not in attendance.

On Wednesday, hundreds of Turks marched to U.S. missions in Turkey to protest the bill, The Associated Press reported. And in Ankara, leftist protesters chanted anti-American slogans in front of the embassy, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

NYT : Passengers Escape as Hijacking in Turkey Goes Awry

Passengers Escape as Hijacking in Turkey Goes Awry

By SEBNEM ARSU | August 19, 2007

ISTANBUL, Aug. 18 — Two men tried to hijack a Turkish passenger plane with 142 people aboard on Saturday but failed after pilots arranged an emergency landing in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya and the two lost control of the passengers.

Television footage Saturday showed people leaving the plane at the airport in Antalya, Turkey.

The plane was en route to Istanbul from Nicosia, in northern Cyprus, when the hijackers, identified by Turkish officials as Mehmet Resat Ozlu, a Turkish national, and Abdulaziz Maliki, a Syrian holding a Palestinian passport, demanded that it be diverted to Iran. They were protesting actions by the United States administration, the officials said.

The pilots reported being under attack minutes after the Atlas Jet flight, carrying 136 passengers and six crew members, took off.

The two men, shouting in Arabic, ran to the cockpit door and tried unsuccessfully to kick it open. One held a plastic bag and said it contained a bomb, passengers told NTV, the private television network.

“I saw these two men at the airport; they had odd looks,” Erhan Erkul, one of the passengers, told NTV. On the plane, he added, “They said they were Al Qaeda members.”

The pilots convinced the hijackers that the plane needed to refuel and landed in Antalya. Then they kicked open the cockpit windows and fled the plane. The hijackers decided to free the women and children on board, but as people began filing out of the plane through two side doors, passengers forced open a door at the back of the plane and, in a sudden flood, most of the remaining hostages escaped.

State-run television pictures showed people jumping to the ground one after another and running away in panic.

Some civil aviation experts here questioned the actions of both the pilots and passengers, but Ali Ariduru, head of the Turkish civil aviation, said that they took the right course under the circumstances.

After more than five hours of negotiations, the hijackers released the remaining four passengers and two crew members and surrendered.

Allegations that the two men were linked to Al Qaeda or other organizations were under investigation, Osman Gunes, Turkey’s interior minister, said in a news conference afterward.

“We’re going to investigate further as to what kind of objectives they had,” he said.

VOA : Fake Bomb Used in Turkish Cypriot Plane Hijacking

Fake Bomb Used in Turkish Cypriot Plane Hijacking

By VOA News | August 18, 2007

Turkish media say two men who tried to hijack a Turkish Cypriot flight to the Middle East Saturday did not have a bomb as they claimed.

Reports quoting Turkish authorities say the so-called bomb the hijackers used to threaten the plane's 136 passengers and six crewmembers turned out to be modeling clay. However, police say at least one of the hijackers had a knife.

Both men later peacefully surrendered to police after most of the people aboard the aircraft either escaped or were released during a refueling stop at Antalya Airport in southwestern Turkey.

Authorities also detained one passenger as a suspected accomplice.

The two hijackers seized control of an Atlasjet flight traveling from northern Cyprus to Istanbul early Saturday, demanding to be flown to Iran or Syria. Passengers interviewed after the incident on Turkish television said the hijackers claimed to have ties with al-Qaida.

The motive for the hijacking is not clear.

Authorities say one suspect is Turkish. The other has a Syrian passport, but is believed to be Palestinian.

Officials say some of the passengers and crew who fled the plane suffered minor injuries when they jumped from the aircraft's open door to the Antalya Airport tarmac. The pilots escaped through the cockpit windows, and they shut off the plane's power to prevent the hijackers from taking off.

Cyprus has been divided into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded the island in response to a Greek-backed military coup in Nicosia. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot state.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Independent : Turkish PM threatens to invade northern Iraq

Turkish PM threatens to invade northern Iraq

By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil, Iraq | July 21, 2007

Turkey's Prime Minister has threatened an invasion of northern Iraq if, after the Turkish election on Sunday, talks fail with Iraq and the US on curbing the activities of Turkish Kurd guerrillas.

Turkish artillery has been firing increasingly heavy barrages at villages in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan. After three Turkish soldiers were killed and five wounded by a mine laid by PKK guerrillas last week, some 100 shells exploded around the border town of Zakho, forcing residents to flee.

The Prime Minister, Recep Tayyib Erdogan, said the PKK fighters had been using northern Iraq as a base to make attacks.

He said there would be a tripartite meeting with the US and Iraq after the election but if Turkish demands were not satisfied, an invasion was on the agenda. "Whatever is necessary could be done immediately," he said. "We are capable enough to do it." Mr Erdogan's hard line is geared to the Turkish election tomorrow in which his Justice and Development Party (AKP is fearful of losing votes because it is being portrayed as not acting firmly enough against PKK guerrillas. It wants to stop the far-right Nationalist Party, which is demanding an incursion in Iraq, getting the 10 per cent of the vote that it needs to win seats in parliament.

The PKK has about 4,000 fighters hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq. It has escalated its attacks in largely Kurdish south-east Turkey, but these are pinpricks as Turkey has an army of 250,000 men in the region. Nevertheless, the question of how to deal with the PKK has become a central issue in the election.

The Iraqi government in Baghdad and the powerful and semi-independent Kurdistan Regional Government are taking Turkish threats seriously.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders are dismissive of a Turkish invasion achieving anything against elusive PKK forces. Safeen Dezayee, an expert on Turkey and a spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party of the KRG President Massoud Barzani, says: "The Turkish policy of military intervention here has failed over 20 to 25 years. They crossed the border in 1992, 1995 and 1997 and got nowhere."

But the PKK is not Turkey's only concern. Others include the development of the KRG as the nearest entity the Kurds have ever had to an independent state. The Kurds are very powerful within the government in Baghdad and are pressing ahead with a referendum, which the Iraqi constitution says must be held in northern Iraq by the end of 2007, under which the oil province of Kirkuk may vote to join the KRG.

The Turkish threat to invade puts the US in a difficult position. The Kurds are America's main supporter in Iraq. Turkey is also a long-term American strategic ally. "The US is telling the Turks not to come in," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish leader. "But if there is a conflict between Turkey and the Kurds then the US will support Turkey." To try to avoid a war the US is pressing the KRG to act against the PKK.

After the election, the Turkish government may feel that it has no choice but to launch at least a limited incursion. The Iraqi Kurds are nervous about how far Turkish troops will advance and when they will retreat. If the invasion comes it will be difficult to keep Kurdish soldiers, who form the most reliable part of the Iraqi army, stationed in Baghdad.